Institute of Dutch Studies, Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg, Germany.
Cluster of Excellence "Hearing4all", Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg, Germany.
J Speech Lang Hear Res. 2021 Jan 14;64(1):250-262. doi: 10.1044/2020_JSLHR-20-00262. Epub 2021 Jan 5.
Purpose Adults with mild-to-moderate age-related hearing loss typically exhibit issues with speech understanding, but their processing of syntactically complex sentences is not well understood. We test the hypothesis that listeners with hearing loss' difficulties with comprehension and processing of syntactically complex sentences are due to the processing of degraded input interfering with the successful processing of complex sentences. Method We performed a neuroimaging study with a sentence comprehension task, varying sentence complexity (through subject-object order and verb-arguments order) and cognitive demands (presence or absence of a secondary task) within subjects. Groups of older subjects with hearing loss ( = 20) and age-matched normal-hearing controls ( = 20) were tested. Results The comprehension data show effects of syntactic complexity and hearing ability, with normal-hearing controls outperforming listeners with hearing loss, seemingly more so on syntactically complex sentences. The secondary task did not influence off-line comprehension. The imaging data show effects of group, sentence complexity, and task, with listeners with hearing loss showing decreased activation in typical speech processing areas, such as the inferior frontal gyrus and superior temporal gyrus. No interactions between group, sentence complexity, and task were found in the neuroimaging data. Conclusions The results suggest that listeners with hearing loss process speech differently from their normal-hearing peers, possibly due to the increased demands of processing degraded auditory input. Increased cognitive demands by means of a secondary visual shape processing task influence neural sentence processing, but no evidence was found that it does so in a different way for listeners with hearing loss and normal-hearing listeners.
患有轻度至中度与年龄相关的听力损失的成年人通常表现出言语理解问题，但他们对句法复杂句子的处理还不太清楚。我们假设听力损失者在理解和处理句法复杂句子方面的困难是由于输入退化处理干扰了复杂句子的成功处理。
我们通过句子理解任务进行了一项神经影像学研究，在被试内改变句子的复杂性（通过主语-宾语顺序和动词-宾语顺序）和认知需求（是否存在次要任务）。我们对有听力损失的老年组（= 20）和年龄匹配的正常听力对照组（= 20）进行了测试。
理解数据显示了句法复杂性和听力能力的影响，正常听力对照组的表现优于听力损失组，似乎在句法复杂句子上表现更为明显。次要任务并不影响离线理解。影像学数据显示了组、句子复杂性和任务的影响，听力损失组在典型的言语处理区域（如额下回和颞上回）显示出激活减少。在神经影像学数据中，没有发现组、句子复杂性和任务之间的相互作用。
结果表明，听力损失者处理言语的方式与正常听力者不同，这可能是由于处理退化听觉输入的需求增加所致。通过次要的视觉形状处理任务增加认知需求会影响神经句子处理，但没有证据表明它对听力损失者和正常听力者的处理方式不同。
